DKIST will resolve features more than 60 times smaller. The current largest sun-dedicated telescope is the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope , which has kept a steady eye on the home star with its 63-inch (1.6-meter) mirror since 1962 from Kitt Peak, Arizona.

DKIST will focus on three key areas: What is the nature of solar magnetism; how does that magnetism control our star; and how can we model and predict its changing outputs that affect the Earth?

Astronomers hope to clearly resolve solar flux tubes – magnetic field concentrations near the sun's surface – thought to be the building blocks of magnetic structures in the atmosphere.

Observatory cutaway showing light entering the top of the dome and gathered by the primary mirror, which is reflected to a secondary mirror and from there through a series of smaller mirrors to the science gallery below. Inset shows the light path in greater detail including the deformable mirror that will cancel the blurring effects of atmospheric turbulence. Notice that the secondary mirror is offset with no obstructions between it and the primary mirror that would otherwise lessen the telescope’s ability to resolve fine detail. Credit: L. Phelps with enhancements by the author

We still lack a complete understanding of how energy in the sun's turbulent, churning interior is transferred to magnetic fields. Earth's magnetic field is about 0.5 gauss at the surface.

DKIST Mezzanine Floor Structure

Fields within sunspots can range from 1,500 to 3,000 gauss – about the strength of a bar magnet but across a region several times larger than Earth.

A better understanding of small scale magnetic structures, too tiny to be resolved with current telescopes, will help make sense of broader phenomena like sunspot formation, the heating of the solar corona and why the sun's energy output varies.

The solar constant, the amount of radiation we receive from the sun, increases with an increase in solar activity like spots and flares.

DKIST Coudé Rotator with dummy masses

Since the smallest magnetic elements are the biggest contributors to this increase, DKIST will be the first telescope able to image and study these structures directly, helping astronomers understand how variations in the sun's output can lead to climate changes.

The speedy shooting ability will help DKIST resolve rapidly evolving structures on the sun's surface and lower atmosphere in a multitude of wavelengths of light from near-ultraviolet to deep infrared thanks to the the extraordinarily clean and dry air afforded by its high altitude digs.